


Expendable

by wily_one24



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Ficlet, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 17:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7855024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wily_one24/pseuds/wily_one24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ungmnnhhhh.” She is the epitome of style and grace as she comes to on a gurney in the DEO medbay. “Jeeeeeesus.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expendable

**Author's Note:**

> Another short tumblr prompt: "I'm alive... I can tell because of the pain."

***

“Ungmnnhhhh.” She is the epitome of style and grace as she comes to on a gurney in the DEO medbay. “Jeeeeeesus.”

Her brain is foggy, she’s completely dizzy to the point of vertigo, her vision is both blurring and pulsing, and she’s pretty damn sure her knee is shot, as well as two… maybe three… ribs. Splendid, the colors painting her body will be wonderful in the coming hours. 

So, of course the first thing Alex does is try to sit up. 

The last thing she remembers is bodies rushing towards her and tentacles. Tentacles and, she looks down… yes lovely, lots and lots of slime. It’s no surprise, then, that the sight of two more bodies slamming open the door and rushing towards her makes Alex flinch back. 

But she knows these bodies and she knows the slender arms that wrap around her. Kara’s face buries itself in her neck and her grip is strong and bordering on the wrong side of pain. Behind her, Astra glares. 

“It’s okay.” She half slurs, in too much of a hurry to reassure them both. “I’m alive… I can tell because of the pain.”

Kara jumps back, then, arms raised in the air. 

“Sorry! Sorry, but… you’re awake! Finally! I thought…”

She shakes her head. 

“It takes more than an overgrown octopus to take me down, Kara, you know that.”

But Kara, her fresh faced, starry eyed, beautiful sister does not smile. She frowns, mouth hanging open just a little bit, betrayal obvious in her eyes. 

“You died, Alex!” And she most certainly does not hear the metal of the gurney groan and buckle under the weight of a Kryptonian fist slamming down on it. “Do you get that? I had to listen to your heart stop!”

A high pitched beep sounds in the air and Kara turns swiftly, sliding out of reach to check her phone before Alex can even stretch her hand out to comfort. 

“Ka…”

“I have to go.” Kara states, not letting her finish. “I’ll be back, later.”

Alex is almost surprised there is not a Kara shaped hole in the door, that’s how fast her sister escapes the room. What’s left is an awkward, heavy atmosphere that seems to falter under the weight of Astra’s silent glare. 

She winces, bringing her hand up to hold in what seems to be a few ribs trying to fall right out of her chest. 

“You are a fool.” Are the first words Astra says to her. “You rush head first into dangerous situations without waiting for backup when you are a fragile measly human. If you ever do it again, I will kill you myself.”

“Astra.” Alex wheedles. “C’mon.”

“If you have no concern for yourself, you should at least think of Kara. She would be devastated by your loss.”

Underneath the stern words, Alex can hear the fear and the loneliness and the ever present feeling that she will never be enough for her niece. Astra is not Kara’s mother, nor her sister, and cannot accept that Aunt is just as valuable a title anymore. 

“I’m sorry.” And she is, because she has been the one stood outside the medbay, watching doctors and scientists teem over Kara’s body, Astra’s body, even Lucy and Vasquez. “I didn’t mean to…”

She cannot finish that sentence, because she did. She did mean to ignore the voice over the comm telling her to wait. She did mean to go ahead to save the others the trouble, even though over half their team is superhuman and invulnerable in a way she will never be. She absolutely meant to draw her gun and stride into the firing line like she always does. 

She meant it then, she has always meant it, and she will always mean it in the future and there is very little she can imagine changing that fact. 

Astra pushes closer, gentle now in a way that her cold aloofness of before was not, slipping between her knees. 

“You are not expendable, Alexandra.” There are hands cupping her cheeks, warm, strong, Kryptonian hands. “Do not treat yourself as such.”

***


End file.
